Many believe mathematics can only be taught in a sequential and linear matter through the means of rote memorization. This means an educator delivers content matter, such as, formulas and equations directly while students passively listen. Gary Tsuruda, a former middle school math teacher, writes about how this might not be the best approach in the article Paradigm shift. While teaching math in a rote matter worked for some of his students, he found that he wasn’t reaching out to all of his student’s needs. Tsuruda decided to shift away from this traditional style of teaching mathematics, and take on a more constructivism approach.
It is then the responsibility of mathematics teachers to make math known to students as mathematics is a necessity for survival. The quality of teaching and learning mathematics has been one of the major challenges and concerns of educators here and abroad. As Boaler writes the opinion: Our future depends on mathematical thinking, but math trauma extends across our country – and the world – due to the ineffective ways the subject is often taught in classrooms, as a narrow set of
1.2 Background to the problem Learners are exposed to different kinds of methods when dividing numbers for example using the invented method, but however long division is regarded as the standard algorithm or traditional algorithm when dividing numbers in mathematics (Beckmann. 2011). When I was teaching this particular topic of long division in mathematics and what I had observed in school environment learners mostly complain, moreover claim not to understand how the long division standard algorithm works when they are busy with dividing numbers and asked to divide more than two digit numbers. This topic takes up much of the time for learners to master the concept of division using the standard algorithm. I spent more time teaching long
Time and I went and observed Mr.Sundance’s math concepts class. Upon hearing that this class has students from different backgrounds and cultures, my preconception was formed. My preconception was based on previous experiments and it was that the class will be a big mess since not all students came from the same grade and age group. I have been in math classes where students came from different grades and the teacher has a really hard time teaching the class because the older students seem to understand concepts better than the younger students. This created a big gap in gardes that the students received as well as the speed in which they move on forward to the next concepts.
As a learner of exam classes, I found skills more difficult than other tasks due to my previous learning experience as I was never taught how to develop sub-skills, how to focus on key words, etcetera. Learners have similar problems while preparing for exams. The interest in teaching exam classes is due to the following: Focusing on learners` weak points. Making lessons
The reason for the spread of this method is the criticism suffered by the traditional theory , because the traditional theory relies on repetition . Many of the world's universities used computer to help teach language , and learning such as Stanford University , which adopted it in the education of linguistics and English language teaching a second language , and teaching of foreign languages . Obstacles to the use of computers in teaching and learning process : 1- The use of computers in these processes ( learning and teaching ) financially costly for some students or teachers . 2- Shortage in the provision of educational programs that are characterized by a high level and nicely . 3- Computer requires from people to have the experience to use it and not the everyone mastered it .
It means that the student were lacking in self-confidence when they were in Math class. It implies that student is confused about his answer, and it is an acceptable reason on why the student is not participating in class. According to Dowker et al. (2016) low participation and low achievement in Mathematics were concern of many countries. As stated by (Wigfield and Meece,1988; Ma and Kishor, 1997).
It has its advantages and also disadvantages which are sometimes alarming and one of these disadvantages are that when students do not know the basics and they are already using the calculator , it can be a problem when they are to perform mental calculations. They will have no foundation of knowledge in mathematics if they will not know mental calculation and solving problems by just thinking and not using any of the modern devices nowadays. This problem had been studied for years because researchers are curious if a calculator can really affect one’s way of dealing with numbers mentally. Mathematics has different fields and all includes basic calculations and one must first know how to analyze the things needed in a problem. A problem may need some manipulations first before performing calculations and a student very dependent to calculators might have a problem answering it.
Separate studies on the mathematics performance of preservice teachers (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1988) and mathematics teachers on the 1993 and 1994 Professional Board Examination for Teachers (Ibe, 1995) reveal the same dismal picture of mathematics competencies of those who intend to teach it as well as those who have been teaching at the elementary and secondary levels. In the same vein, Mathematics anxiety is the result of the student 's negative attitude or
Various studies in Ghana and in different parts of the world have adduced numerous factors contributing to the low performance of student in mathematics. Such factors include the student’s level of readiness to learn, societal values, inadequate teaching and learning materials, misconducts in examination, lack of motivation of students by teachers and gender disparities in the mathematics performance (Bessong & Obo